


Made to Break

by ProfoundlyInLove



Category: The 100 (TV), The 100 Series - Kass Morgan
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Best Friends, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Non-Explicit Sex, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:01:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26069884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfoundlyInLove/pseuds/ProfoundlyInLove
Summary: Friendship with Bellamy Blake had always been like a tightrope. One small wind could send them sailing into unknown waters. Little did Clarke know that all it would really take was a wedding with one too many glasses of moonshine and a hotel utility closet to change everything.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Emori/John Murphy (The 100), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	Made to Break

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to Miranda (sparklyfairymira) for betaing this!! It was super rough when she looked at it and now it's something that I'm super excited about!!
> 
> Fair warning: I'm pregnant and the brain fog is wild, so I may be a bit slow to update.

The light was starting to shine through the balcony doors of their hotel room. It made her brain thrum and she hissed quietly, squeezing her eyes shut tightly. A hangover had already settled deep into her skull and there was no turning back now. Clarke could feel a weight over her waist and suddenly her stomach was turning. She pressed her lips together tightly and tried to replay the night before in her mind, trying to ease her anxieties. Octavia’s wedding, the reception in the hotel ballroom, and the utility closet...

It wasn't helpful. Instead, it only increased them tenfold.

When she opened her eyes, she was face to face with Bellamy Blake. Hungover, naked, and far too close for even  _ them _ to call platonic. Clarke was sure her heart was going to fall out of her mouth. Hurriedly she reached down to pull the sheet up to her chin as she wormed her way out of his grip, pulling too far and too hard as she fell to the floor with an embarrassing thud.

Still wrapped in the sheets, she scrambled on the floor when she heard Bellamy snap awake. Her mouth was dry and all she wanted was the free breakfast that came with their hotel room. Clarke didn't want to think too long about any of it. How every wall she'd carefully built between them had just come down onto her with a crushing weight.

Bellamy searched frantically for something to cover himself with, less graceful than he normally was.

Clarke wasn't sure if it was the moonshine or the shock of waking up naked in bed with the last person she’d ever expected, but Bellamy managed to pull himself together faster than she had. She was already making a pact with herself to never drink moonshine again when Bellamy finally spoke.

"What time is it?" His voice cracked and she was sure his mouth was just as dry as hers felt. 

She could almost hear her mother's voice in her head, scolding her for not drinking enough water. Clarke missed the useless scoldings and strong looks that her Mother used to give her. The supportive grin her Dad would give over her shoulder when her Mom would ground her.

In her experience, growing up seemed to have a fair number of negatives. She didn’t ask to be born, but here she was—alive and making just as many mistakes as she did as a teenager. 

Clarke glanced around the room until her eyes landed on the clock that read 9:45.

"Get dressed, we only have fifteen minutes until breakfast is over. I promised O that we would see her before she goes on her honeymoon," Bellamy said with a casual breeziness that made Clarke's heart race. Did she remember incorrectly? Did he not remember?

Instead of questioning the lack of awkwardness, she took a breath and stood to get ready for the day. The light still made her brain feel like it was on fire, and the smell of her toothpaste made her want to throw up every drop of alcohol she'd drank at the reception the night before.

She could remember every moment of the last twelve hours, and she wasn't sure if it was a curse or a blessing. That question rang through her head as she grabbed a plate for the breakfast buffet in the lobby downstairs, piling everything she could think of onto the oversized plate. If she was going to throw up, she was at least going to make it worth it. The eggs made her stomach flip, so she stuck closer to the sweet-smelling pancakes and sticky syrups. Her coffee cup was filled to the rim, and she was counting on every drop to make it through the next few hours of her day. Clarke could see everyone sitting in a back corner while she idled around the coffee machine, holding her cup close to herself. The warmth was almost comforting. Octavia and Lincoln were considerably less hungover from what she could see from across the room. They were one of the only people in the vicinity either not squinting in pain or wearing inconspicuous sunglasses on a Sunday morning.

Personally, she’d chosen to rock the " _ I haven't showered and still smell like rubbing alcohol but at least I put new clothes on _ ," look. Her leggings were comfortable, and the oversized flannel shirt that hung open with a camisole underneath almost made it look like she tried. There wasn't even any paint on this shirt, which Clarke liked to call an accomplishment when nearly every article of clothing she owned had some form of paint on it.

Clarke's cup of coffee was nearly empty by the time she managed to cross the room and sit in her place at the table —her seat being saved by a bottle of Advil and a water bottle. It was between Octavia and Murphy, so it could have been either of them. They both seemed to have the same cruel sense of humor when it came to the morning after a night out. Octavia seldom drank and was the picture of obscene joy while Murphy just reveled in the chaos. Judging by the shit-eating grin on his face, Clarke was guessing it had been the latter.

She gave him a pointed look that shamed him into silence while she cracked open the water and peeled off the safety seal on the Advil. There was a fluffy cotton ball inside, buffering the pills from the air. She flicked it aside into Murphy's lap and Clarke could hear Emori audibly snort into her hand, nearly spilling her coffee. Murphy scowled but Clarke chose to ignore it, tossing back two pills with a gulp of water. Wordlessly, Clarke held another two pills out in her hand across the table, waiting for Bellamy's hand to reach out for them.

He didn't even flinch when their hands touched and Clarke could practically feel the envy rolling off of her. She didn't want the burden of remembering solely on her shoulders.

Jasper and Monty were speaking in hushed tones at the end of the table as they started to pass around their "miracle hangover cure" which was just their heavily dosed marijuana brownies. Clarke couldn't help but smirk when she saw Octavia take a heaping bite with a silly grin as she decided that since it was officially her honeymoon it was time to let loose. She didn't miss the eye roll that Bellamy shot Raven as she offered him a bite of hers, and she called him  _ such a Dad _ .

Clarke just wanted to crawl back into bed. As soon as she finished her pancakes she could make an excuse to run for the hills. She couldn't exactly claim burst pipes since she lived with Bellamy and a work emergency didn't cut it for a high school art teacher. Her parents had both died and any sort of family emergency would involve someone else seated at the table with her.

She was so deep in her thoughts of escape that she didn't even notice as people started to pull away slowly. Miller needed to get to work since he was on the swing shift for the local police department where he’d been working since he'd gotten out of the military. Harper had claimed morning sickness and dragged Monty out with her—Jasper was too busy deciding between syrups to even notice them leave. Murphy and Emori were trying to get the kitchen staff to let them take home leftovers for free so that they didn't have to cook lunch and hopefully dinner as well. Lincoln was lazily eating his omelet while Octavia talked about all the places they'd see when they landed in Hawaii later that day for their week-long vacation.

"Earth to Princess? Wanna get out of here?" Bellamy asked, waving a hand in front of her face, snapping her back to reality. She could feel her face heating up and the thought of having to go back up to their room to gather their things made her squirm in her seat. He didn't miss her funny expression but seemingly chose to ignore it.

"Faster we leave, the faster you can sleep in your own bed," Bellamy said with ease. He smiled at her like he always did and she could feel herself ease slightly—but only slightly. She wished she'd let Murphy convince her to have that sixth shot last night. Maybe that would have been the game-changer and she'd have woken up in black-out blissful ignorance.

The idea of sleeping in her own bed was too intoxicating to ignore. Clarke could practically picture the soft embrace of her comforter and the smell of lavender that always clung to her room since Octavia had broken three bottles of essential oils on the carpet. When it had first happened the smell had given her a headache, but now it was just a lingering comfort and a reminder of home. The days where all she worried about was getting good grades during finals, staying up all night in what was once Octavia's bedroom—silly from the sleeplessness. Octavia and Clarke would manage to never let the silence hang for long between them until Bellamy would find them in the early hours and force them to turn the lights off. Octavia would call him an authoritarian with false bitterness until he'd leave for work.

Life was so much easier in college, and Clarke yearned for that simplicity every day since she graduated over a year ago. Now she had a full-time job with responsibilities and had to juggle to maintain a balance between her work and social life, as well as her side business doing commissioned paintings for people who wipe their tears away with crisp hundred dollar bills.

As she threw her dress from the night before into the trunk of Bellamy’s shitty Jeep, Clarke couldn't help but think about how much easier life would be if she had a hundred dollars laying around like. The paint had all but peeled off of the Jeep and left it looking like a sad, stripped hunk of metal. It was a miracle it was still running, and Clarke was sure that Raven would love being referred to as a miracle.

The thud of her duffle bag hitting the bottom of the trunk made her squint in pain, her migraine still going strong. Cold morning air was biting at every inch of exposed skin and she pulled her flannel tight around her, wishing she was on her way to Hawaii right about now. Maybe Octavia could hide her in a suitcase and she could spend the next week laying on a beach, looking out at an ocean that seemed endless.

Instead, she was stuck here in Arkadia, landlocked unless she wanted to make the at least two-hour drive to the East Coast. Most of the time, Clarke enjoyed it, but anything sounded better than being trapped in her apartment for the rest of the day with Bellamy with no valid excuse for a quick escape. She wondered if she could beat a personal record and just sleep through the rest of the day until work the next morning. Sleep was never something she was fabulous at doing, but maybe just once she could force her mind to shut off for a few hours.

Bellamy turned the radio up just loud enough that they could sit in silence for the forty-five-minute drive from the hotel back to their apartment closer to downtown Arkadia. Octavia had wanted to get married deeper into the wooded area of their smaller town in a small and rustic ceremony. The reception that had followed was where Clarke had gotten herself into trouble.

She could still taste the moonshine on her lips and sweet sloppy utility closet kisses in the dark. The way his hands felt gripping her thighs as he held her up against the wall, her legs wrapped around his waist. Of his stubble scratching the soft skin between her legs and the silly giggles and drunken promises that would never be spoken in the light of day.

_ "I'll make you feel so good, Princess."  _

Clarke shuddered at the memory, trying to push it from the forefront of her mind. She could see her blush rising in the reflection of the rearview mirror and she tried to force herself to focus on anything but that.

In an attempt to think about absolutely anything else, she remembered Jasper's drunken Maid of Honor speech that absolutely no one had asked him to make—including the Maid of Honor. Clarke had been slack-jawed when they'd announced that she would no longer be making a speech but that Jasper had  _ graciously _ offered his services. She was pretty sure that he had given Lincoln's aunt a stroke because the poor woman looked horrified as he'd talked about the first time he'd ever walked in on the happy couple with a severe lack of clothing.

Clarke sometimes wondered if her friends had been terrible misfits in another life, because their group always seemed to exceed her expectations of chaos. Emori and Murphy had spent most of the reception flirting over one too many glasses of champagne while they repeatedly played their favorite game of stealing something off the other without getting caught. Miller nearly knocked over the cake and she was pretty sure that he'd snuck upstairs to his hotel room with Jackson before they could get dragged into another wedding game. Harper managed to stop Jasper from spiking drinks with homemade moonshine but didn't notice that Monty was freely sharing the "confiscated" moonshine with the eager delinquents that Harper had managed to save from the said moonshine in the first place. Raven had brought Wick as her date and Clarke was pretty sure they spent half the night arguing about a project that Raven had contracted out to Wick through her mechanic shop. Octavia had been so distracted by the fact that is was her wedding to even notice that the Maid of Honor and Best Man had snuck off after the last of the speeches to have scandalous drunken wedding sex.

She hated remembering that last part. 

When they finally got home, Bellamy had carried her bag for her up the four-floor walk up to their apartment. The Blakes had lived in the building since Bellamy had been a baby, and now the apartment was all his—legally speaking. Clarke had moved into Octavia's old bedroom during their sophomore year of college since Octavia had decided to skip the dorms that year to live with Lincoln. Bellamy had offered the empty bedroom and she'd yet to be kicked to the curb. If anything, she'd entangled herself into the apartment so much that it didn't even feel like it was just his anymore. Everyone thought of it as a home base, a place to sleep it off, or a couch to camp on when Murphy was kicked out for running his mouth to Emori. Touches of her were visible all over the apartment—like the collection of mismatched mugs or the towels with cartoon characters that she couldn't even name but they'd been on sale at Walmart.

Bellamy fumbled with his keys and eventually, they both managed to collapse onto the couch in exhaustion. Their shoulders were pressed together as they melted into the soft comfort of the couch that they had definitely overpaid for. Murphy never complained though and since he probably slept on it more often than anyone else, Clarke took his opinion to heart and chose to not regret the thousand dollar splurge. She definitely hadn’t gone back to Ikea since then and Bellamy seemed grateful since it was his job to put together anything she bought for the apartment.

Sleep took over so quickly that when Clarke's eyes fluttered open it felt like it only been seconds had passed, but she could hear Bellamy clanging pots and pans around while he did the dishes, soft music playing from the speaker they kept in the kitchen. The clock that hung on the wall beside the bookshelf read 6:00 and Clarke looked out the window to be met with dusk creeping across the horizon.

She was a bit impressed with herself, because napping was definitely not a talent of hers. Sleep always seemed to be that beautiful unattainable thing that she longed for. Since her parents died, the idea of a restful sleep always seemed just out of reach.

Clarke smelled pizza and her mouth watered. She saw the box sitting on the kitchen table just out of Bellamy's view. Glancing at the box she saw that it was from the Dropship and her excitement only grew. Murphy and she had worked there in high school and while she would never want to experience that again, their pizza was unbeatable. Without a second thought, Clarke crept towards it, crossing her fingers that it was a garlic veggie style.

She noticed that it was a half and half pizza and the vegetable side was untouched while the barbecue chicken side had been demolished with seeming ease. Clarke popped a stray piece of chicken into her mouth as she grabbed a piece of her side of the pizza, taking a heaping bite.

The sound of a soda can hissing open with a sharp pop as Bellamy cracked it open behind her startled her and Clarke nearly choked on her overzealous bite of pizza.

"We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," Bellamy started, breaking the comfortable peace that had been sitting between them all day.

It felt like she was at the top of a very tall tight rope—teetering from side to side, praying to God that she didn't fall from leaning just too far to the left. Clarke treasured her friendship with Bellamy above all else and ruining it would destroy her. On the other hand, she wasn't sure she wanted to go back either. There hadn't ever been a time that she hadn’t looked at him in a way that wasn’t strictly platonic. Raven had called it respectful pining when they'd talked about it, much too drunk following a dating disaster when they’d been just twenty-year-old college students. Not much had changed since then except that Clarke had learned to keep her respectful pining much more discreet. She'd been doing it since she was seventeen—she’d been bound to learn eventually.

Clarke swallowed awkwardly and took sharp breaths through her nose in an attempt to calm her racing heart. "I don't know what to say, exactly," she started, refusing to meet his eyes. Instead, she focused pretty intensely on the floor and thought about how dirty the rug looked the longer she stared at it.

"It doesn't have to mean anything...if you don't want it to. We were drunk, it was.. Stress relief?" Bellamy offered, his voice shaking a bit. A small part of her was glad of that. It meant that he was just as nervous as she'd felt all day long—it was a guilty pleasure, but a pleasure nonetheless.

She couldn't help but wonder if he’d said it so that she’d have a way out—or if he was the one who needed the way out. Once the thought struck, it didn't seem to leave.

Bellamy had never been someone to have a long term serious girlfriend, at least not in the six years that she had known him. It felt like an eternity to her. One day she was a high school graduate attending her college orientation, making moon eyes at her soon-to-be roommate’s older brother. The next, she was an adult trying to navigate her way through the most complicated friendship of her life. The lines blurred so often between them that even she forgot that friends were all that they were.

He could have said something, but he didn't. He's not saying anything now.

_ But neither was she. _

"Yeah, stress relief," Clarke hummed in response, still refusing to look up—taking comfort in the fact that after she got out of this situation she could wash the rug and pretend that everything was fine.

"Stress relief isn't a bad thing, is it?" Bellamy asked, his voice going up just a fraction.

That tore her attention away from her mistreated rug. He looked so nervous. She could hear her own heart in her ears.

"Of course not!" she replied quickly, shocking herself. Clarke wanted to take back the words before they even left her mouth. She could imagine Murphy's lecture already with Emori's helpful additions while they mocked her over a beer.

  
  


"What did he say next?" Emori asked, enthralled by the story. Murphy tossed a beer cap in her direction as he took a sip from his fourth beer of the night. They were sitting in Murphy and Emori's backyard with a party pack of the cheapest beer that Clarke could find at the gas station on the way over to their house.

"He said we have to have rules!" Clarke replied with an exasperated sigh.

Beer came out of Murphy's nose.

  
  


"What kind of rules?" Clarke asked, trying to not sound as nervous as she actually was. She could feel the seconds ticking past, the clock marking them aloud.

"Like...no sleeping in each other's beds. No messing up the friendship and if it starts to, we stop," Bellamy supplied.

"Octavia can't know," Clarke said with certainty.

"Agreed," Bellamy hummed.

  
  


"He's going to eat your Princess heart alive, Griffin," Murphy snorted.

"Not helpful, Murphy," Clarke replied with just a touch of heat. He was always the person who understood the parts of herself that she tended to hide from everyone else. The angry, confused, orphan side that had no place in her life now. She still couldn't cut that part of herself away even if she wanted to. But that would mean forgetting some of the most important parts of her life.

Meeting Murphy in Marcus Kane's house had been a turning point in her life. Changing from the easy-going fourteen-year-old with two parents to a confused fifteen-year-old who lived in a foster home and shared a bathroom with a hurricane of a teenage boy.

It wasn't something they talked about much these days even during their monthly family dinner with Kane.

"Let me get this straight, Clarke Griffin and Bellamy Blake are  _ friends with benefits _ ?" Emori scoffed and Murphy couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity.

There had been so many times that even their closest friends thought they were dating not to mention strangers. Now they  _ were _ sleeping together and they were  _ just _ friends. It was like the universe was laughing at her.

"Not helpful!" Clarke said, her voice coming out in a nervous high tone. This only made the couple laugh harder.

"I remember when Kane told me that I had to be nice to you and I regret ever listening to him!" Clarke yelled over the laughter, irritated.

They only continued to laugh so Clarke reached over and snatched Murphy's beer out of his hands and took a long drink.

  
  


When she and Bellamy finished their conversation, Clarke washed the rug with care before texting Murphy that she was on her way with a case of beer and to please not laugh at her.

  
  


The laughter eventually died down and Clarke rolled her eyes as she finished the stolen beer and waited for Emori to pass her another from the box.

The grass was littered with beer caps, the stars were becoming clearer, and the air was just starting to bite at her skin.

"Are you sure you're okay with this, Clarke?" Murphy asked seriously, popping another beer open for Emori without even asking. Clarke had noticed that they always seemed so in-sync with each other. Emori took the beer wordlessly and tossed the empty one towards their trash pile that they would clean up in the morning. She couldn't help but wonder if she was that in-sync with Bellamy.

"Totally okay. I can be the fun girl," Clarke assured them with a raise of her eyebrow and a wink that she had intended to look sexy, but Clarke was pretty sure it was just cringe-worthy based on the facial expressions of the other two.

"Sure you can," Murphy replied skeptically, handing her another beer without asking.

She needed it. "I am  _ so _ not the fun girl," Clarke sighed.

The laughing erupted again, and Clarke resigned herself to the ugly truth. She was  _ just friends _ with Bellamy Blake and even drunk wedding sex couldn't change that. Life  _ really _ was cruel.

"Does that make me the mistress?" Murphy asked with a grin that made Clarke's eyes roll to the back of her head and Emori booed at him with a silly smile. "It's a valid question! I'm the other best friend, but not the main man. No offense Griffin, but I'm not looking to get in your pants."

Clarke finally started to laugh at the absurdity of it all. If she could tell the fifteen-year-old version of herself to be nice to John Murphy, she would do it without hesitation.

"You can be my dirty mistress, Murphy." Clarke laughed, sending Emori into a laughing fit of her own. Grey's Anatomy was a favorite pastime for them and Murphy definitely was a fan of the dirty mistress storyline.

"You are such a Cristina," Murphy snorted.

"Does that make me McDreamy?" Emori asked with excitement.

"If I'm the dirty mistress, you can be McDreamy," Murphy assured her, his tone light and joking.

Clarke gagged audibly, and a beer cap landed in her hair. Maybe life wasn't  _ horribly _ cruel. Clarke's phone screen lit up with a text from none other than Bellamy Blake.

Life was still cruel, but just not horribly.


End file.
